Have you ever looked back at a situation and said “wow, I wish I knew what I know now, then”? We all make mistakes that are lessons learned, and hopefully don’t make that same mistake again.

Being an entrepreneur is not always easy. There are a lot of factors that can play a part in the success of your business. A lot of mistakes are common and easy to make, and could potentially sabotage your success. Some mistakes you just have to learn on your own, but luckily, some of them you can learn from other people.

According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, it is 6-7 times more costly to attract a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer. Considering the fact that 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from 20% of your current customers (Gartner Group), customer retention is something you’ll want to be paying attention to when planning for 2016.

When it comes to planning out the year to come, we often focus on how we can drive new prospects into the marketing funnel. New leads, new customers, onboarding, etc. become the cornerstone of our strategy and sometimes, we forget to nurture our existing customers and build in strategies to retain them.

If you’re on my newsletter list, you may have noticed that the format has changed this week. The change is a big one — we have stripped away the images, dropped down to fewer links and pared down the text to be as plain as possible, without going to a completely “plain text only” email.

Photographers and small business owners are always looking for ways to grow their business. One of the ways they do that is by setting up a website, Facebook page, Twitter profile, Instagram account, and so on and so on.

Then, they rarely, if ever, make any updates and they lose business because of it.

There is a business responsibility that comes along with managing your presence on Social Media if you REALLY want to grow your business.

I recently walked into a pet supply store and asked the girl who was working if they had any small bags of Now brand dog food for adults.

She looked at me like I was asking for something foreign to their establishment. It was the kind of look that said I was crazy to be asking for dog food in a store with rows and rows of dog food lined up.

She walked over to where the product is kept on the shelf, gave a quick look and said, “No, this is all we have but we have an order coming in tomorrow.”

I asked if they were expecting more of that particular brand in the small bag to be in the order tomorrow.

She told me she didn’t know, and then said, “sorry” and walked away.

That’s it, job done. Another problem customer dealt with.

Definitely not an experience that would have you rushing back to check and see if they have the product you need in the future, right?

Here are four basic things she could have done instead to “close the deal” even thought they didn’t have what I needed at that time:

Try and sell me the larger bag of the same food that they had in stock

Try and offer a different product that I might use instead

Offer to call me the next day when the order arrives and let me know if they received my product

Offer to contact another one of their stores

Instead, she just said, “sorry” and completely missed the opportunity to engage with me and make a positive impression.

Unfortunately, many people are not taught how to sell, serve, or help a customer when the answer isn’t a simple yes or no.

Judgement and basic problem solving skills have gone out the window and, along with them, initiative has disappeared.

If you want to grow your business, make sure you look at how your team solves problems like when someone wants to buy and you don’t have what they want immediately available. These interactions can mean just as much if not more than those with customers who walk in (or click on your site) buy what they want, and leave.

Making sure to always interact with the customer in a professional and helpful way is a necessary sales skill whether you are selling social media services, recruitment, sales, or dog food.

For the record, Pet Valu will keep me as a customer because the girls who work in the other store I go to have exceptional customer service and always solve problems.

Unfortunately, not everyone will have a secondary experience to compare to when things go wrong so it’s imperative that you make sure every client interaction is the best it can be whether it results in an immediate sale or not.

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